Things that probably happened before and after the new commonwealth
by TFALokiwriter
Summary: Pre-slash. What the tin says.
1. Chapter 1

Harper was fleeing on foot behind Tyr.

The Nietzschean was running ahead of him.

The firing shots of the Drago pride struck the bark of the tree across from him.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Harper swore, getting back onto his feet then fled behind Tyr.

"Run faster, boy!" Tyr shot back.

"I am running as fast as I can!" Harper replied, with a huff. Harper tripped over a fallen piece of log landing onto his knees. "Uh, help!"

Tyr came to Harper's side then placed a hand onto the young man's waist and lifted him up to his side against the chainmail.

"Not fast enough," Tyr said.

"I can run pretty fast when there are no trees," Harper said.

"I think not," Tyr turned from the direction that he was running with a brief stop and fired dead on the firing Drago pride member. The not-well-camouflaged man collapsed to the ground floor without much of a scream. "You are fully incapable of outrunning a Nietzschean."

Harper folded his arms.

"Yes I can," Harper said.

Tyr stifled a laugh.

"Nietzscheans are far more superior than you," Tyr said. "In fact I can leave you behind and still get to the Eureka Maru without getting killed."

"I can fire pretty well," Harper said, as Tyr turned back giving another shot.

"If you can, then why did you not bring your gun?" Tyr said.

"Well, someone misplaced it!" Harper said.

"I did not," Tyr said.

"I bet it was Trance," Harper said. "She doesn't like my gun in the workshop. Acts like I can fire at her when she randomly appears in the workshop when I least expect it."

Tyr looked down toward the young man.

"Would you?" Tyr asked.

"Pppphh," Harper said. "As if. I would never do that to my purple lady."

"I seem to recall you did it to me once," Tyr said.

"That was Halloween," Harper said. Tyr was vaguely familiar to it with his time spent aboard the Andromeda. "Rommie was doing her two day contribution. Got a spare gun?"

"No!" Tyr fired back.

"Ah sucks," Harper said.

Tyr fled into the Eureka Maru. Upon arriving inside. He dropped the young man to the floor speeding toward the cockpit. Harper made his way toward the old Mar officers quarters. If he didn't take it with him to the mission then he probably left it behind. Again, by accident. Two years spent being fired at and he really needed to have them on him when he left the Maru. He climbed up to the bed then took the gun from under the pillow. Harper laughed as the Eureka Maru flew into sky heading to break orbit while he had one hand on the side of the rail.

"Oh!" Harper slapped his knee. "So that's where I hid it."


	2. Chapter 2

Everywhere Tyr went aboard the Andromeda, he felt vulnerable and naked. His bone blades were no longer part of him. Did he even have his nanobots even more? Was he even Nietzschean? His forearms were bare and soft. Dylan had done all he could to comfort the man. He, too, left. The only ones who were more Nietzschean than him were Beka and Dylan. He felt inferior to those who were superior than him. Rommie, and Trance didn't count as they were not genetically altered. His arm cover was no longer necessary. He didn't know what to do with himself. He didn't. . . Feel even Tyr Anasazi anymore.

He felt more as a human than anything.

No longer altered for that matter.

Was this how humans felt?

Helpless and vulnerable, inferior, all the time?

If so, they did a good job of masking these feelings all the time.

"Hey Tyr!" Tyr was drawn out of his thoughts by the familiar voice.

Tyr looked over toward the young man.

"Harper," Tyr said. Harper's hands were behind his back, oddly enough. "You here to mock me?"

"Uh, no," Harper said, then revealed his hands. In his hands were a pair of gray shoulder armor with detachable blades. A series of them, actually, three on each side. A smile was on the engineers face. Bright and hopeful. "I am here to make you feel better."

"What is this?" Tyr said, taking the pair into his hands.

"Your personal bone blade therapeutic comforter," Harper said. "To help you get used to being comfortable under your own skin again." Tyr looked down questioningly toward the human.

"Why would you want to help me?" Tyr asked.

"Because, Tyr, there are people who love and care about this giant beast capable of killing them without leaving a trace," Harper said. Tyr slowly slid on the pair onto his arms. "Even if you don't want to show it." Tyr turned his attention onto the human. "You don't have to."

"Did Dylan ask you to make this?" Tyr asked.

"No, actually," Harper said. "He didn't."

"You just decided to make it out of the goodness of your heart," Tyr asked.

"Yes," Harper said. "Pretty much. Keep it or throw it away after you're done with it. I can always make more for Nietzschean officers who face a similar problem like yours. . ." Harper stepped back then began to walk away. The engineer headed toward the doors. Tyr felt along the blades that felt strikingly familiar. Bold and confident. Yet, he wasn't. Tyr looked up toward the walking human.

"I was wrong about you," Tyr said.

Harper stopped then turned toward Tyr.

"So was I about you," Harper said, then walked out leaving Tyr.


	3. Chapter 3

Tyr stepped out of the Eureka Maru then shoved forward the informant toward a group of security officers.

"Take him to the assigned quarters," Tyr said.

"Aye, sir," the tallest security officer said.

Tyr walked past the group of high guard officers to see the doors open to the hangar bay. Harper speeded toward Tyr then landed against his shoulder with a jump and ended up hugging it. Tyr looked over in surprise at the man then lowered his arm turning his attention away. He walked away from the Maru. Harper's arms were wrapped around the man's upper shoulder. There was a scar on the side of it. Freshly made by enemy fire. Mostly Drago firing. Before, he would not understand Harper's new found tendencies to hug him after a difficult life-threatening mission. Now, he understood it.

Tyr walked down the corridor.

Officers walked around him giving strange looks.

Tyr ignored what was on his arm making his way to the medical deck.

A path that he had gone and picked ahead of officers being added to the Andromeda.

A path that he though would largely be empty with a slowly being crowded ship: he was wrong.

There were plenty of Nietzscheans looking at him. Most attachments by humans were considered ridiculous and absurd to have. If Tyr found himself threateningly humming as he passed them, he didn't make a note of it. Even without his bone blades, he was still feared among Nietzscheans. And he had stopped trying to be Nietzschean. All together as he had been among them for three years. Which meant, himself, was inferior yet what was left of the original crew all viewed him as superior to them. A unique perception lens. It made him feel powerful when he was not. Tyr came to the medical deck then he looked down toward Harper. Trance was dealing with a ensign.

"Harper, you can let go," Tyr said.

Harper let go of the man's arm landing to his feet.

Tyr gently wiped what was left of his blood off the man's cheek.

"I am really glad you made it back, you hunky beast," Harper said.

Tyr raised his eyebrows up at the surprising comment.

"Is there something wrong with you?" Tyr asked, baffled.

"It's just that. . ." Harper said. "It just occurred to me that I haven't really told you how Nietzschean you are."

"Compliments are unnecessary as I feel better," Tyr said. "I threw your invention away. It served its purpose."

"They are not compliments," Harper said. "They are reminders of how menacing you are."

"That is still a compliment," Trance said.

"She is right," Tyr said.

"No, it's a flirt," Harper said.

Tyr glared toward Harper.

"We are not flirting with each other. Besides, if we were, IF," Try held his index finger up. "I would have you distracted from stabbing you in the back. With poetry."

"Now there is the Tyr I know and love," Harper said, with a grin rubbing the man's shoulder. "Welcome back!"

Harper walked right past him as Trance giggled. Tyr watched the human exit the deck. Harper seemed to find ways to baffle him. He was the most baffling human that he had come across in his lifetime. He came to a bed and waited for a nurse to come tend his wounds.


	4. Chapter 4

First, there were four thousand High Gaurd officers.

Then there was one.

One living life sign inside.

Frozen in time for three centuries.

Then for three years that slowly changed. There were seven then were six, and slowly over time more officers graduated the new High Guard Academy. It was four officers at first then slowly it grew. Hundreds of officers were being transferred to the Andromeda. The attacks against her, the annoying and tooth and nail battles, were no longer happening with intensity as they had in the dark ages. She watched the crew grow as individuals. Rev's sudden change that was both alarming and yet fascinating. Harper acting as the silk spider web that binded the crew together as a family unit. And kept her together. Now he wasn't alone in engineering putting her back together.

Four thousand officers were going to be coming back anytime in the next year.

It was too good to be true.

The gossip mill was up and running.

She would rather die than admit that she loved it.

The new officers were not used to losing people.

Her stations were now being manned by qualified officers.

Yet. . . It seemed like the black hole event could happen all over again.

Was it okay to be afraid of losing what everyone had fought so hard to get back?

The worldships attack would destroy everything including her. Rommie wouldn't be able to take that loss again. Even if Dylan would survive, she wouldn't. She just wouldn't with all that grief in her avatar. Her left hand wouldn't be able to properly operate as she walked over the bodies of the officers. The simulations were akin to nightmares. Yet there was hope that it might not happen right now. Not now. Maybe in twenty years in a blaze of glory. Realistically, it could be next year. The Mogag ship was heading their way. She had performed many simulations to herself while the crew rested.

It would take destroying the worlds of the worldship. One by one. Or a sacrifice, a large one, for that matter. She was scared of losing everyone and surviving. Again. Every single officer she had gone to call family. Her pilots, her security officers, her weapons officers, her medical officers, her slip fighters, and the rest. She was scared. AI's were never built in High Guard to be this emotional as she was. Rommie drew her feelings into battle. Every missile struck represented her feelings about the threat and her resolve not to let it happen only grew. Over her dead body, over Dylan's dead body, would she lose her crew and the Commonwealth. Dylan would not stop fighting. Until his last breath was drawn for that matter.

She was happy, otherwise, to have her halls occupied by crewmembers.

The quarters once manned by her previous crew were now occupied by the new.

The belongings to the old crew was held in storage.

Rommie was a battleship and had seen devastation, tragedy, and victory.

The dark ages were exactly that.

Only with they came with a reward.

She was now the flagship, the leader, of other ships.

She was commanded by Commodore Hunt.

Her slipfighters commanded by Captain Beka.

Her weapons commanded by Commander Anasazi.

Her engineering taken care of by Lieutenant Harper.

And her medical staff headed by Lieutenant Commander Gemini.

Getting used to the new Commonwealth officers was easy. But not easy for them speaking to a AI who was capable of appearing anywhere, on screen, in front of them as a hologram, and as a android. They were bound to be used to it by the time the Magog attack happened. She was assured they were going to be ready. And they would. The Maru's computer provided some company. Even as he was a computer, she kept his secret that he had become sapient during Beka's lifetime. Eureka Maru had become a AI. Maru loved the crew and Beka like his daughter. He made Andromeda give her word to protect the captain to reassure him that things were going to be okay three years ago. He thought they were going to abandon him. Salvage him to help repair the Andromeda. Instead, he became a vital part of the ship and its protector. Rommie wasn't surprised about it. Rommie believed a part of Sid was programmed into the ship. The protectiveness over Beka was quite unique to say for the least. Maru provided Rommie some company when Trance was away. And now she had more company. It made Rommie smile, happily, looking off on the observation deck. Enjoying the now and not the then.

 **The End.**


End file.
